


Eden

by inbarati



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-15
Updated: 2010-04-15
Packaged: 2017-10-08 23:29:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,770
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/80604
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/inbarati/pseuds/inbarati





	1. Chapter 1

"This planet is completely uninhabited, Colonel. Why are we even here?" Rodney McKay checked his energy readings for the tenth time in ten seconds, seeing nothing of interest, _again._

"Lorne said they didn't get any readings until they got near the ruins, McKay. Relax. Think of it as a day off. On an uninhabited planet, at least we know there won't be a Wraith attack coming soon." John shouldered his rifle and started walking.

"Well if Colonel John Sheppard says it, it must be true." Rodney snapped sarcastically. "If I recall correctly, the last place we weren't expecting any Wraith had one that hadn't eaten in ten thousand years."

"You're the one with the life signs detector." Ronon reminded him.

Rodney didn't have an answer for that, so he stalked off ahead. Ronon just quirked an eyebrow at a grinning John. Teyla sighed and went to walk with Rodney.

Teyla handed Rodney a powerbar. "Perhaps you should eat something, Rodney."

"Oh! Thank you, I'm starving." Rodney ripped it open and took half of it in one huge bite. In the midst of chewing, he stopped and shot Teyla a narrow look. "You've been talking to Carson, haven't you?"

Teyla just smiled her inscrutable smile. "We must all learn to take care of each other. That is what makes us teammates." She took the life signs detector from Rodney as they walked, so that he could devote his attention to the powerbar. "Look, there's something down that hill." Teyla held it out so Rodney could see.

"Looks like a stasis pod. The energy readings are very low." Rodney started to run, shoving the powerbar wrapper into his pocket. "Colonel Sheppard, Ronon, we've found something," he radioed as he and Teyla ran down the hill.

As they got to the atrium of the ruined temple, the energy readings from the stasis pod bottomed out. Swearing, Rodney fell to his knees and hit the emergency release. Miraculously, it worked. The pod opened to reveal a woman. She was round-featured, with unremarkable brown hair. Slightly heavyset, she looked kind of like a female Buddha to Rodney. "She's still breathing," Rodney whispered.

John and Ronon both barreled down the hill, guns at the ready. "McKay, you of all people should know better than to open strange stasis pods! She could have killed you, or possessed you, or something."

"Well, it was open the stasis pod or let her die. Letting her die would have made all the running I just did pointless." Rodney snapped back.

They all startled when there was a small croak from the woman in the stasis pod. Teyla lifted her head and gave her a sip of water. "Thank you." The voice was deeper than Rodney had expected, and rusty from a long time in the stasis pod. Clear hazel eyes glanced around. "I have survived the destruction of the temple. That is good," she stated simply. "Are you my people?"

"Y-your people?" Rodney stuttered. "I'm Rodney McKay, This is Teyla Emmagan, Ronon Dex, and John Sheppard." He held out the other half of his powerbar. "You must be hungry."

The woman merely smiled and took it from him, eating it silently. After a moment she asked, "Have the Wraith been defeated?"

"No." Ronon said simply.

"My people were culled, as were yours." The woman looked sad. "I am sorry for your loss."

"As are we, for yours," Teyla interrupted a sharp comment from Ronon. "It is considered impolite, in our cultures, to read someone's thoughts without permission."

"She's reading our thoughts?" Rodney put his hands in front of his face as a shield. "Please, don't do that."

"I am sorry. It has been a long time since I have associated with others outside the simulator. I will not probe your thoughts any more."

"Do you have a name?" John asked.

"I believe, from what I understand about your culture, that the closest analogy for my name would be Eden. I keep the knowledge of my people, and others who have visited my home, for the time after the Wraith."

"What kind of knowledge? How many people?" Rodney couldn't contain his questions.

"Many kinds of knowledge, from so many people I can no longer number them. The Elder put me in the stasis pod and hid me in the ruins during a Wraith attack, that my knowledge might not be lost." Eden looked around, as if expecting to see the Elder in the temple somewhere. "I think that must have been some years ago." There was a tremble in her voice.

"How old are you?" Rodney asked.

"I am no longer certain. One thousand cycles of Elders passed before I went into stasis. I do not know after that."

"You're a thousand years old?" John sounded incredulous, "Yet you're not an Ancient."

"I am… a construct. Made by an Ancient who tried to help my people, at the beginning of the war. I believe he was punished by his people." Eden looked at her hands. "A cycle of Elders lasts ten years," she whispered, finally.

"Ten thousand…" Rodney began, but Teyla cut him off.

"You must have watched many people you cared for pass." Teyla pressed her forehead to Eden's. "May the Ancestors give you peace."

"I need to fulfill my purpose." Eden said suddenly. "Do you have a recorder?"

"We'll take you back to Atlantis." Rodney stood up and held his hand out to Eden, who tried to stand. Ronon caught her as she fell.

John shrugged, knowing he should have been the one making that decision, but it wasn't like they could leave her alone on an uninhabited planet. The made their way slowly back to the gate.

***

"She's exactly what she says she is, physically. She has both human and Ancient DNA. Here, you can see neural activity is off the scale, in all the parts of her brain, even the ones humans rarely use." Carson updated the senior staff in the morning meeting. "She seems perfectly healthy, if a little weak from her time in stasis. She cannot read or write in any language we know, so the maths she has for us will have to be translated from whatever native tongue she got them in. The anthropologists will have a field day with her, too. She knows the stories of hundreds of cultures the Wraith decimated thousands of years ago."

"Yes, yes, Radek has been singing her praises for the last 24 hours. Can we get on with the meeting, so I can get back to work?" Rodney was more irritable than usual. Radek Zelenka had radioed him at two thirty in the morning to tell him something Eden had said, and he hadn't been able to get back to sleep.

"I think that's all we have for today." Elizabeth ended the meeting, and everyone went back to work.

"Rodney." Eden smiled up at him from his workstation.

"That's my workstation," Rodney said.

"I know. Radek said I could play this game while I waited for you." She had beaten his high score at Minesweeper.

"I'm very busy, Eden." Rodney was trying to curb his impatience. He didn't want to be rude to a ten thousand year old woman, but Eden looked like she was in her twenties, and it was hard to remember that she knew more than everyone else on Atlantis, combined.

"I know! Radek has told me about your research. I think I have knowledge that may be of use to you. I understand it is almost lunchtime. Will you walk with me?"

"It's against my religion to turn down food," Rodney replied, and Eden beams at him.

"John told me you would say something like that."  
***

"So you've been talking to everyone," Rodney tried to make small talk as they walk to the transporter that will take them to the mess.

"Yes. Your people are so friendly and giving." Eden paused for a moment. "Rodney, why does that make you sad?"

"You're not supposed to be reading my mind without my permission." Rodney grumps, his heart not really in it.

"There is more than one way to know what a person is feeling," is the only reply, followed by an expectant pause that Rodney doesn't fill.

"May I?" is Eden's soft reply to Rodney's stony silence, and she brushes fingertips across his forehead.

Rodney feels strangely unable to deny Eden anything, so he nods, and she brushes his forehead lightly again, this time with her lips.

"So much sadness and regret." Eden says as she pulls gently away, taking Rodney's hand in hers. Rodney looks around, slightly mortified, but the corridor is deserted, except for the two of them. "Someone took away your wonder and gave you fear." She straightens, without releasing Rodney's hand, and begins walking toward the transporter again. "They love you, Rodney. They see you as a friend. You should let them in. Let him in. He will not hurt you the way you think he will."

"Like there's another way that's so much better?" Rodney grumps again, and Eden laughs.

"Yes, but that is for you to find out." She fixes him with a serious gaze, suddenly. "I have something I want to give you, Rodney, before I go. May I do that?"

Again, Rodney finds himself nodding, though he isn't sure why. Eden presses her forehead against his, and a picture forms. Full schematics on how to safely build a ZedPM, complete with a protected pocket of null space to contain the inevitable exotic particles. "Wow," Rodney whispers, pulling back. Eden is pale, very pale, and before Rodney can ask what's wrong, she collapses. "Carson! Medical team to the labs, hurry!" He checks to make sure she's still breathing, which she is, shallowly. He carefully brushes the hair back from her forehead, which is clammy. "Eden, come back," he whispers into her ear.

Her eyes open slowly. "Rodney," she smiles. "I have done what I was made for. It is time for me to be with my people."

"No," Rodney denies, hotly. "You take it back. I don't want to be responsible for your death!"

"Even if I could, I would not. This is not my place. There is nothing left of my world, nothing left for me but sleep." Eden closes her eyes, but Rodney shakes her roughly. She just smiles at him. "Don't forget me," and she's gone with a sigh.

***

It's several days before Rodney checks his email. He's been hiding out in his quarters, ignoring the radio, drawing the schematics for the ZedPM, eating his stash of powerbars to avoid going to the mess, and remembering Eden.

Heightmeyer has been by his room a few times, as have all his team members, Carson, and Elizabeth. They seem worried, but it really doesn't make an impact on Rodney. He doesn't know why he's taking the death of someone he barely knew so hard. He feels responsible, and is certain there will be repercussions from the others.

It's almost a week before he logs on. There are 300 emails in his box. Most of them are from Radek, questions about the schematics, but there are almost as many from the Colonel, and Rodney, curious, opens the most recent one of them.

__

Rodney –

I'm really not the best communicator in the whole world, but you have to come back. We miss you, buddy.

I miss you.  
\- John.

Rodney remembers Eden saying,_ "Let him in. He will not hurt you the way you think he will,"_ and wonders if the stinging guilt of knowing he's made John worry is what she meant. Or maybe the pleasure of knowing John cares enough to worry, which is just as painful in it's own way. He opens another one, randomly.  
__

I think she tried to tell us when she said her name was Eden. The price of knowledge in that story was always death. She knew what the cost was, and only told us obliquely so that we would accept what she had to give us.

I took her picture. I sent it back to earth to have it enlarged, and copies made for all of us. She's smiling. She wasn't unhappy, Rodney. She wouldn't want you to be unhappy for her sake. No one blames you. She told me you would feel that way, though not what about. Come back to us. We're not a team without you.

Rodney is startled by the knock at his door. It's 2230, Earth time. Rodney thinks the door open, and Sheppard is standing there. "Hey," is all he says.

_ Let him in. He will not hurt you the way you think he will._ "Uh, come in?" Rodney is confused, but Eden's been right about everything else, and he trusts her. He trusts Sheppard, too, he realizes. "What's up?"

"We were… Well, I was, uh… worried. About you." Sheppard isn't usually this reticent.

"I'm okay, just, you know, sort of sad." God he was totally turning into a fourteen-year-old girl.

"Yeah, I get that. She was something special."

Rodney snorted. "First woman we've found associated with Ancient tech who hasn't made cow eyes at you."

John had the grace to actually blush. "Yeah. She really understood."

"Understood what?"

"I'm kind of taken." John isn't looking at him.

"Oh?" Rodney tries not to sound hurt. "You haven't mentioned it before."

"Yeah. I was afraid." John peeks up at him through his lashes, uncertainly.

"Of me?"

John nods. "Of what you'd say." He shuffles his weight from foot to foot. "She told me not to be."

Rodney makes a wry face. "She told me the same thing about you." He left 'apparently she was wrong about something,' unspoken.

"Oh? Why?" John steps a little closer.

"You first." Rodney is more of a coward about emotions than he is about physical danger. He fully admits this, at least to himself. "Who is she?"

John just looks at him, dumbfounded, for several moments. Then he drawls, "I thought geniuses were supposed to be quicker on the uptake," while stepping in close to Rodney.

Rodney's been kissed more skillfully, but the sheer weight of John's nearness has him breathing heavy before their lips ever touch. Rodney moans when John parts his lips with a careful tongue.

***

Rodney gets the botanists to build a garden on the west pier. The first stone on the path leading in says EDEN. He has to trade all of his chocolate, and the best coffee for it, but it's worth it. He makes a detailed entry in the Database on who Eden was, what she gave them, and what she gave up for them. He has to leave out the parts where John holds him while he cries for a woman he barely knew. He keeps those in his personal journal though.

She asked him not to forget, and he won't. He can't, not with his life so radically changed. He has John, and they have all seven ZedPMs a year later. The Wraith haven't been defeated, but Rodney knows it's only a matter of time.


	2. Eden's Garden

Jason Marks, head of Cultural Anthropology for the Atlantis expedition, was not an excitable man. So when he _ran_ halfway across Atlantis and into Elizabeth Weir's office, talking faster than Rodney at top speed, Elizabeth's first response was to worry.

"There are entries on over a thousand cultures that weren't there last week, and they include mythos, ritual, daily routines, beliefs on raising children, the status of gender, evertything!" Marks practically shouted at her.

"Is that bad?" Elizabeth asked, worried.

"Bad?! Bad! It's the best thing that could have happened to my department short of actually meeting and cataloging the cultures ourselves!" He threw himself into a chair and pushed a thick folder of the names and entry numbers of civilizations at her.

"I guess Eden didn't sleep much while she was with us." Elizabeth said, quietly, flipping through the folder.

***

Later that evening, Elizabeth Weir snuck out to the garden on the west pier. She had intended a private 'thank you,' but she wasn't alone. Rodney and John were sitting together whispering back and forth, so she went to them. "Rodney, John," she greeted, and the both smiled at her.

"I hear Eden left something more than ZPMs behind," John said, making room for her on the bench.

"Yes, yes she did." Elizabeth looked out over Eden's garden and smiled.

Rodney poured some Athosian wine into a plastic cup for each of them and raised his glass. "To Eden."

They all drank, and sat together until the sun went down and the wind started to chill.


End file.
